- The movie is the message of redemption.
Everybody's loved by God.
And no matter what you've done, he's always there for us.
I'm filled with gratitude that others
will come to know him through this film.
- I told Mark, I think you captured the essence
of Father Stu's life.
The overall message is, there is nobody
out of reach of the cross of Jesus Christ.
And he has conveyed that in a very moving way.
- We don't get to choose what happens,
only how we respond to it
and how we're gonna cooperate with God
to overcome the difficulties and challenges
that exist in our world.
- He was stubborn and that's to put it mildly.
- He told you everything you needed to hear,
even if you didn't wanna hear it.
- Put it simply, Stu was a troublemaker,
kind of a cool guy, a tough guy, wrestler,
football player, eventually boxer.
- And he picked up boxing,
winning his weight class in Golden Gloves one year.
- He wanted to be an actor.
He was a bouncer.
- He was just a completely normal guy.
- It was at that point that he had a dramatic life change.
He was hit by a car.
- By that time, he was probably wondering
what he was gonna do next.
- "I'm gonna be a priest."
- "Your son is about to make a huge mistake."
- We didn't push religion, both his mother and I
had had it pushed at us pretty hard when we were kids.
- My mom and dad, I want them to become Catholic.
That was a biggie for him, a bad boy
to realizing that God saved his life for a reason.
- He was at the seminary and one of his friends
said he noticed that he was losing strength.
He was diagnosed with inclusion body myositis.
They really couldn't do anything for him.
- He used to speak to the Knights quite a bit.
The Knights are very closely associated with the priests,
in terms of supporting them and protecting them.
- The Knights of Columbus gave him
a beautiful set of vestments that he cherished.
- Those were vestments.
You can see, he eventually cut them to fit
so he could fit into the wheelchair.
- He could not even lift the weight
of the host at the elevation.
And so one of the students would come up
and they would hold his hand
and they would lift the host up for people to see.
- The more that there was put on him,
the stronger his faith got, it seemed.
Every time you went to Father Stu's Mass,
you knew Jesus was there 100%.
- He became weaker and weaker, but it didn't stop him
from wanting to celebrate Mass with the people.
- He had quite a following.
227, that was the number of his room in the nursing home.
So everybody called it Parish 227.
Often there was two or three people
down at the end of the hall
and waiting their turn to get in.
- They would be in fear and trembling to go to confession
and they would come out
because he would say to them, that's it?
That's all you have to say?
Been there, done that.
He was, you know, very cavalier about it,
but he made people feel at ease right away.
- After he passed, people were obviously
very sad that we were losing our friend.
The story of Father Stu resonates with every man.
We, as Knights, are called to give of ourselves freely.
That's what Father Stu did.
He made an election to live under the banner of Christ.
- This film captured the essence
of Father Stu's life.
And if our viewers here are any predictor of things to come,
I think it'll touch a lot of lives.
- Like to convey to my brother Knights
watching the story of Father Stu
to always know that they're loved.
God offers mercy and redemption to each and every one of us.
- Last words I'd have would be,
Thank you. Thank you, Father Stu.
- People that he grew up with
still can't believe he ended up like he did.
It was what he was supposed to do.